(Prompted by the Sun Shadow Mountain and other publishing ambitions.)Interview Questions from Paula Sheil to Donald R. Anderson and Nikki Quismondo for the December 2007 issue of the SJDC publication

Artifact. What's your background as a writer and poet?

Nikki: It started when I joined a poetry reading group here in Stockton California at a coffee shop venue called the "Caffeine Den". At first, the group reminded me of a therapy session. People read their poetry and gave their emotional response to why they created their poems.Others gave feedback in sort of a support group setting. I then ventured out into performing at open mic shows in Stockton. I have always written poetry, even as a child, but I never really never considered myself a poet. I am more a lover of reading poetry, as opposed to actually writing it. I was seriously inspired by the nature of mutual learning and the distribution of new and unfamiliar voices and impressions through poetry. I drew deeper into the culture of the poetry scene and hosted poetry events, performed in poetry shows and collaborated with other artists like dancers, photogrophers, artists ect... I also collaborated in publishing small book projects and anthologies and have judged the 2005 Barnes and Noble Poetry Contest. Along with creating anthologies, I have published my own poetry in them as well.

Donald: I loved music since a kid, it was my love at first sound, but it included a deep connection with lyrics. So I wanted to write and play music and write lyrics, but I didn't continue practicing my piano as I became older. So I took college classes such as Rock Lyric as a Literature Form, by Anna Villegas. She inspired me to try her poetry class. First semester she wasn't the teacher, and I wanted the regular teacher to see how the full experience went, plus I liked her style from the previous class, so I repeated without credit to experience it. I learned that indeed poetry was what I loved as much as lyrics, even more so because it was concentrated ideas, pure words, not the diluted stuff of sounds. Though sounds can tap into emotions, I found the way to tap into the imagination was directly through describing. Show not tell, her major theme and the theme of much modern poetry if not the classics as well. I found out in 2007 that it goes the same for novel writing, describe things not tell them. Prove how you got to the conclusions of your philosophy instead of beating someone over the head that they should take your word for it. Villegas's semester included an experience in comb bound semester publication of a poetry booklet, so I got hooked on self publishing ever since. And learned the ways of the publisher without being taught, which leaves some gaps in knowledge I'd like to fill still. Plus I need to learn to develop my editing side, I find it easy to write but difficult to edit, most people are either more of an editor or more of a writer. I do have a meticulous side though, it comes out at times to play. I think the science fiction I read growing up was less fantasy or horror related than recently. I wrote my first novella in November 2007, a romance placed in the future, though it's not complete.

What was your vision for Sun Shadow Mountain?

Donald: I hoped for a psychological journey from the sunny, to the shady, to the monumental. We got a lot more than we bargained for. Our original group had a vision for covering the spectrum of emotions in a setting of our Californian flavor, including the beautiful environment. We got that too, from a group that extended a few from even outside California.

Nikki: I wanted to create an anthology that showed consistency. I wanted it to look aesthetically pleasing. I also wanted to include other creative artists, such as artists and photographers. I wanted their work, to not only become illustrative, but also, stand alone as its own celebration.I wanted the book to be sold world-wide and to be printed in paperback, instead of the way we had published in the past with making them comb-bounded and doing the entire hard manual work ourselves. My vision was to be able to include award-winning poets and established artists, with new writers with lots of wonderful talent. I wanted to create a book that celebrated people's experiences in poetic stories from different cultural and socio-political backgrounds. I wanted it to be a book about versatility, beauty, wisdom and intertwining them in to three natures, Sun Shadow Mountain. The vision was to have the poems represent the concept of the poets celebrating themselves for being poets and artists and sharing that celebration with their relation to nature and to the world around them.

Describe its contents.

Donald: Remarkable. Thought-provoking. Inspiring. Californian. Beautiful. Tragic, joyful, and spiritual. I went into detail along with Nikki in the forward of the book, it was a joy putting it together, though it took hundreds and hundreds of hours over a couple years.

Nikki: The book contains an array poetry and artwork, plus photography work from 38 creative artists. It is divided into three themes, the first, Sun, the second, Shadow, and the third, Mountain. In the Sun section the poetry is filled with energy and life, poetic stories of nostalgia, as well as poetry celebrating the beauty of the Sun, in a literal and metaphorical sense. It is enriched with love poems, vibrant artwork, and photography work that show California's beautiful landscapes. The second section, Shadow, includes poetry written in a much softer sense, it includes impressions of sorrow, pain, sensuality and hidden inhibitions. The third section, Mountain, contains poetry written about strength, inspiration and philosophical thought. The section also includes beautiful artwork and photograph of mountainous landscapes.

How did poets and artists respond?

Donald: We got a good response to the final product. Our only drawback was it was more than we initially thought it would cost because of the bookseller markups, but it's worth it. Another thing is those experienced in the poetry world were impressed with its hefty number of pages, all along a theme. The only responses we've gotten from the final book cover were positive. A lot of the poets are going back and reading our fellow collaborators for the first time next to their works and seeing how much work it took, and how well associated and selected the works were, thanks more to Nikki than me, though we both put in countless hours. It is the kind of book that's so much good content you can't take it in all at once, you have to read a little, put it down and dream about it, then pick it up again.

Nikki: The creative artists in our book are the best people in the world! This book was more about them than us, and Donald and I both wanted to keep the communication process on-going with them. They were very patient and we were all excited about seeing the final result come to print.There's a certain trust one has to have when joining an anthology of 38 artists, not only with each other, but also with lending the book out in the hands of the manufacturers and the entire book world. For some of the poets, it was their very first time getting published and so, we were very excited for them as well. I think we were all surprised with the beautiful end result.

Describe your major hurdles.

Donald: Keeping track of 38 contributors, organizing and coordinating our efforts over long distances, and the long editing process that included making it work with lulu.com's format standards for publishing it with Ingram Distribution. I almost gave up with the overwhelmingness of the project, but Nikki's faith in it brought me back to my senses, and I'm immeasurably grateful and pleased in the result. Yes, the editing still had minor things we don't notice until later, but they were hard to find.

Nikki: I think the major hurdle was having to reject so many excellent writing pieces because of having to fit so many pieces within our 170 page limit and our limited budget. Another major hurdle was when we discovered one of the poets, Marjorie Wagler-Carmack passed away the week before the book came to print. Her daughter was the one who submitted her poetry and she wanted to surprise Marjorie when the book came to print, unfortunately she wasn't able to do so. We believe, however, that Marjorie's spirit is with us.

You and Nikki Quismondo have been collaborting as editors and publishers for some time. How did that working relationship form? How do you split the task?

Donald: I was into self publishing, the first comb bound anthology came out the year I met Nikki, I gave her a copy at an Open Mic night at the Caffeine Den. From there on gravity drew her into it as well. A shared experience that gave us both joy and brought us closer together. We both try to work on things. Nikki has been great at coordinating, and at making selections for works. I've been great at getting the computer to do the things that Nikki envisions artistically for the books or newsletters. We learned as we went, so each book should, in theory, be better than the last. Nikki and I make a great team, we keep hearing people say, we keep telling ourselves, and we keep being reminded of when we look at the end of a new issue and see, "wow, did we do this?" ... in that five minutes before we discover our first overlooked errors. Editing is a unending process, you always will discover something you could do better, that's why there's deadlines, otherwise it would never get done. Why do we do it? Because we love to! Because of the gifts we give to each other by it, the good feeling in helping others and in being read and in the weight of that printed work in our hands. Poetry, for us anyway, led to self publishing. Look up zines online and you'll get a taste of what self publishing has become for the American Dream, take that into being a professional publisher someday and you'll see what drew us to this and each other.

Nikki: Our relationship formed when I became an advent fan of Donald R. Anderson's writing. We met at an open mic. in Stockton. When it comes to working on our publishing projects, Donald gets them started and I get them finished, but it's an ongoing cycle with the tasks. We are always trying to make improvements. It's a collaborative effort. We have two, very different personalities but, we make it work. What I lack, Donald is a master at, and what he lacks, I pick up for it. We have different talents, it took us a while to figure that out, but we managed to proceed by faith and with the ongoing knowledge, that it isn't about just us alone, it's about the supporting cause, and we share the same dream, in that, we have an obligation to provide an open vessel for artists and to see to it that we can help manifest their creative talents and share them with others.

Talk a bit about what it means to build a poetry/artitistic community.

Donald: The community supports itself. If people act on their creative spirits then it spreads, if not then it dwindles. Fortunately we've seen more and more people around us become inspired and realize their creative potentials. It's not our doing, it's the community itself. I've tried to connect with every artist and poet I come in contact with, but I think there's others out there who do the same. I'm not the first local publisher, Paula Sheil, you did a collaboration with !Zam Bomba! (then Artifact magazine with the Writers' Guild, then Tuleburg Press)... David Humphreys published as Poet's Corner Press. Newspapers, newsletters, zines, fliers, magazines, books, chapbooks, they come and go like wildfire in the area and even more so the closer you get to the thriving populaces that grew around the big waterways of the bay and capital. Betsy Lee is one of those who move to more supportive communities in those areas, but not until she had made her mark with Blue Moon Press. Every one of our anthologies is meant to be a collaboration in the joy of getting ourselves into print and being read. Nikki and I are very different in philosophy from those who make profit, though someday we wish, when we can, to go professionally into publishing. Yes the community has grown, it is great to see it happen around us, but by far it's a collaboration. I do want to make a positive change in the world, this was a small step.

Nikki: It means continuously having to be there in support of the arts. I get out there, make friends, meet other creative artists, share ideas, develop ways to incorporate those ideas, plan events, organize programs, and perform at shows and book readings. It also means listening to people, taking their interests at heart, learning how to fit my life and my ideas with theirs, it's about including people, and inspiring them, as well as to be inspired. It's fun, but not always, easy work, in a world where there are so many differences, but, in the poetry world, the writers seem to usually respect each other's differences. We are all very fragile. When we read our thoughts aloud, we become vulnerable; it is beautiful to see the community sharing in such a profound way.

What's your own writing process like?

Nikki: I have a little ritual that I do. I find a place to be alone, and I keep several things next to me, I have a journal, a thesaurus, and a dictionary, a copy of one of my favorite books, something sweet to eat and a glass of wine. My writing time is my luxury time and private time. It is one of the reasons why I don't participate in writing workshops, although, I do believe they are very fruitful. I have never submitted poetry to any other publications, except for the ones I personally work on because I am still trying to grow as a writer and to perfect the skill. I like to experiment with the way words sound and to be able to use those sounds to evoke emotional and sensual impressions. I like to leave my poems open to multiple interpretations, and to include my cultural background, as well as to sometimes show a tribute to female deities of many different cultures. I was trying to develop plans for the next book project.

Donald: I write because I feel the need to create. If a moment seems to be something new, and I have the means, I will write a poem. In November 2007 I wrote the 50,000 words plus, to complete the goal for National Novel Writing Month, though by far even the people there admit that's not enough to be a novel. A fan of theirs created National Novel Finishing Month to write another 30,000 word goal addition through December. Perhaps I will reach an end to that particular novel. It was my first year at that, it was a new experience for one like me who hadn't written anything much besides poetry since 8th grade (when was that? 1988? mortality: another motivation to get the butt into gear and write)... Their websites are nanowrimo.org and nanofimo.org and for the editing month (March) nanoedmo.net ... I will tend to get inspired by people reading poetry, and write a poem while they read... and hope and pray they don't get offended, because it's actually being inspired by them, I'm still listening to them as I write, feeling the moment. I love to attend the workshop that I got going, it started way back at the Caffeine Den, then went to the Anywhere Cafe, then to Lola's, all three of which are out of business now lol, hopefully we're not cursed, then we moved to the Acacia Street Cafe, then to Marie Calendar's, then recently to the sunlit porch-rooms of Patricia Mayorga's house, it's now called "Poet's On The Roof", the webpage is here for if people want to reach each other, it used to happen on 1pm to 3pm on the 3rd Saturday of the month. Writing processes involve group poems where we each do a line written after the previous person, each line must use a word picked from a hat, which we each wrote the words not knowing any subject, creating a very interesting result.

What's your connection with San Joaquin Delta College?

Donald: I got my Associate of Arts from Delta in Fall 1999, after exploring a wide range of classes. I started going for certificates recently. For Summer and Fall of 2007 I'm working temporarily at the Professional Development Center, the teachers' computer lab. I earned my Web Development Applications Certificate in Fall of 2007, my Graphic Design Certificate in Fall of 2008, then moved on to get my second Associates Degree in Information Technology from University of Phoenix in 2015. Delta has a club called the Writers' Guild that has helped get the word out for our book and has a few members that are published in Sun Shadow Mountain. The Writers' Guild also is involved in our newsletter, Poet's Espresso, which Nikki and I coedited before passing the project on to Patricia Mayorga.

Nikki: I am a San Joaquin Delta College Alumni. I graduated with an Associates of Arts Degree in 1996. I was also involved in some of the programs that Delta College had to offer, such as the Electron Microscopy program. I was also the co-editor of Poet's Espresso, a Delta College publication.

How have sales been?

Donald and Nikki: We received our first royalty fee check in November of the initial printing year. We were very excited about it and we distributed the fees to our contributors. Sales went better than we initially expected, then sharply dropped to a rare sell here and there. We are looking to find ways to improve the marketing process and by getting the word out. The majority of our book sales were from Stockton purchases only, from friends and family and those that heard the reading events. We hope to expand that, since the book is made available nation-wide, though it's not something we've pushed recently. Both of us are learning how to market the book from that aspect, but, we are still very inexperienced. We just hope that we reach a lot of people with love and creative inspiration, whether or not we make profit.

How do people order a book?

Donald and Nikki: If you're in Stockton area you may have seen them for sale in the past at San Joaquin Delta College bookstore, University of Pacific bookstore, Borders bookstore, or Barnes & Noble. Other ways you can buy a book is by order (or online) at Borders (which went out of business though), Barnes and Noble, www.amazon.com, www.lulu.com, or you can see our list of places that it's orderable at (but not on shelves) in USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, or Japan, see the link, which is also on the book cover image, on this Sun Shadow Mountain Website.

Is there a question you wish I had asked?

Donald and Nikki: No, we think the interview questions are great. Thank you!